The Dance of Wounds: Understanding Reciprocal Patterns of Hurt in Relationships

Capital Choice Counselling Group
www.capitalchoicecounselling.com
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© Dr. Martin Rovers
Chapter 5
The Dance of Wounds
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place
but, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
....Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
By Portia Nelson
The dance of wounds
is the dance of all persons.
It will continue a dance of wounds and hurting
until such time,
through awareness and thoughtfulness
that I change it into
a dance of life and self understanding
that can even lead to
a dance of joy.
.... Martin Rovers
Conjugal soul-making is choreographic.
.... Kohlbenschlag
The Dance of Wounds
Every person wants to be loved. Falling in love offers both partners the feeling and
assurance that some fundamental unmet needs are being appeased, such as intimacy, affiliation,
individuation, achievement, and so forth. When the honeymoon begins to wane, however, and one
partner begins to get the impression that these primary needs are ignored too much by the other
partner, it can create what is called primary distress. In response to this perceived lack of attention
or distance in attachment pattern, partners seek, often desperately, a return to that previous

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“falling in love” feeling. However, as we have seen, that sort of love intensity cannot be
maintained, the honeymoon comes to an end, and the dance of wounds begins.
In Chapter One, family of origin theory described the family system as a set of established
interactions, rules, beliefs, stances in communication and ways to resolve differences and conflict.
These are learned in childhood within our family of origin and they are pretty much set in place
and operative for the rest of our lives. The focus is on the interactions that occur among family
members or between partners. Systemic theory suggests that these interactions tend to be
reciprocal, patterned, spiral, and repetitive. When these interactions are on the hurting or fighting
side, the dance of wounds begins to take over. These dance steps of hurt and anger are reciprocal
in that the “dance” between family members or between partners happens when the behaviour,
words, tone or look of one person dovetails or causes an emotional reaction in another person. The
action of one partner causes a reaction in the other partner. Each couple will, by trial and error,
determine their own unique dance of wounds. This dance is reciprocal in that one event modifies
another which in turn modifies the first. It is never possible to find out who really started it,
although couples at the beginning of therapy are most willing to point fingers and shout that it is
“all your fault!”. This dance is also patterned and repetitive in that the “same old thing” happens
often enough that couples in therapy can tell stories, or as one wife put it, “if I told you once, I’ve
told you a thousand time!”. Spiral refers to this dance progressing from bad to worse (negative
spiral) and create distance in the couple relationship or advancing gradually better (positive spiral)
which can help bring partners together.

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This dance of wounds, these circular loops of hurt and anger, acquired their beginnings
within the family of origin and are continued with more or less repetition within future couple
relationships. In other words, these loops of hurt and anger within relationships are like a dance,
with the steps so rehearsed that both partners know the steps instinctively, although perhaps not
consciously. Thus, the overfunctioning partner shapes the attitudes, feelings and behaviours of
the underfunctioning partner as much as the underfunctioning partner shapes those of the
overfunctioning partner. Couples become stuck in their own self-reinforcing interactional loops.
This position is often self-maintained. Partners have a tendency to reciprocate or respond to
negative actions with negative actions of their own. Once one or both partners become
downhearted in the relationship, a self-perpetuating process tends to justify the ongoing negative
response. On the other hand, when partners embark to interact in more favorable way with each
other, affirmative reciprocity can help to maintain and increase relationship satisfaction, and call
forth more assuring and constructive behaviour from the other partner. These cycles of interaction
generate stability and affirmation, and leave the couple in a secure place.
The dance of wounds or this dance of circular loops of hurt and anger happens something
like this: one partner can may become emotionally distant because (s)he has been fearful and
critical of others most of his/her life and especially in an intimate relationship with parents and
now with partner. (S)He therefore becomes withdrawn and hurt. (S)He may show this distance by
becoming angry and resentful and soon all that the other partner sees are these negative loops of
anger. The other partner, in turn, (in fact, simultaneously as in a couple dancing together)
organizes his (her) responses in terms of making demands for change and, until sufficient changes

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are made, becomes less easy to please. People who demand change from their partners dig
themselves into a deeper and deeper impasse as both partners circle around this loop of hurt and
anger. Thus both partners become super vigilant and distant. Neither partner decides to exit the
system yet neither can attain the security and intimacy hoped for in a couple relationship. Soon
the couple is locked in the dance of wounds. These feelings of hurt can turn into angry criticism,
but anger, in this case, is only an attempt to modify the partner’s behaviour. Anger can be seen as
a protest against the inflexibility and perceived mean-spiritedness of the partner. In other words, it
is only a fight for the love they really are seeking, but all gets lost in the negative dance of
wounds. The dance of wounds is a power struggle, nay, a struggle for survival, fueled by the fear
of loss. I fear that if I lose your love and your partnership, I will loose a whole lot of myself.
Often, in therapy, couples tell me how frustrated and resentful they are to allow themselves to be
so effected by what their partner might say and do. It is like they have but little power over their
partner’s pushing their buttons.
Example 1:
John and Margaret are married for six years and come into therapy complaining of marital
distance and conflict. They say that communication has broken down. John complains that
Margaret is distant and spends all her time either at work or in front of the T.V. Margaret says that
John is critical of anything she tries to do in the relationship. Attempts to talk things through just
end in accusations against each other. On the cluster of attachment patterns, Margaret is a strong
avoidant person , very individualistic and afraid of intimacy. John has a strong need for attention.
He also has a distant relationship with his family of origin and seems to over-compensate with his

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preoccupation with a relationship with Margaret. The following script is a familiar pattern of their
fights.
Margaret John
Why are you always so critical of me, like you
were this morning? You never show me enough attention.
Take this morning, for example, you got on
my case for reading the newspaper. Well, when I got up, you never even said
good morning.
That is because you don’t even touch me
anymore at night. How can I touch you when you never say a
loving word to me.
It’s hard to be nice to you when you are so cold.
You’re cold! All you do all evening is watch
T.V. and ignore me.
Well, it’s a lot better than being criticized by you.
You come home from work late, and hardly
talk to me.
When I try to talk to you, it is only blame.
I just want more attention from you.

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I just want you to be nicer to me.
Well, you started it.
No, you did.
“The hole in the sidewalk”
Example 2:
Beverly (35) and Patrick (46) have been together for six years and have a four year old
girl. Beverly left home when she was 17, stating that she was the one left out and un-cared for in
her family. She headed east to work and quickly met and lived with Fred. Within the year she left
him and lived with Jim for almost ten years, even as she described most of those years as feeling
alone and unhappy. Although sounding very individuated, in fact Beverly feels quite insecure in
relationships and tends to cling to her partner. This is Patrick’s first marriage although he had
dated a few times. He describes himself as an easy going man who is close to his family of origin
and loving his work. He has a cottage next to his parents home. Although sounding comfortable
with his relationship with his parents, Patrick is quite fearful of too much togetherness and is
avoidant with Beverly. Beverly and Patrick met and were married within five months. The
following script is a common exchange when the dance of wounds is on but note that his need for
avoiding a fight and her need for attention were not being met.
Patrick Beverly
I need you to spend more time with me and
our daughter.

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I have so much to do, fixing the house and
the cottage. You and your damn cottage!!! I am sick and
tired of working on it. We are never home
You always use to love to go there. Remember
how you would help me when we got married! I did that for awhile. Now I need you to
spend time with me. You always go there.
Not always, just when there is a family gathering That is twice a month!!! I get sick when I
think of all we did there.
You are never happy with my family! All you think about is them!
There is no pleasing you is there! You don`t care about me at all.
Oh, what`s the use!
Example 3:
Paul and Paulette have been married for 10. Paul is the oldest of four children and had left
home at the age of 16 years to “get out of the house” and away from his angry father. He had lived
alone for years before marriage. Although describing himself as quiet, Paul also reveals that he is
distant from his family and has few friends. Paul avoids all fights yet he never forgets when
someone hurt him. Paulette is the youngest of three children, likewise from an family where dad
was verbally and physically abusive, but Paulette describes herself as the one who “stood up to
dad”. Although a “fighter”, Paulette doesn’t care what others think of her. Neither his need for

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appeasing and her need for “the truth” were getting met in this fight. Their dance of wounds can
look something like the following:
Paul Paulette
Why did you tell my sister that she was too bossy?
Someone has to tell the truth around here.
You could have just left it alone.
When anyone tells me how to discipline my
son, it is my business.
You could have told her in a nicer voice.
She was yelling too.
I hate it when you have to tell everyone what to do.
Why don’t you stand up for yourself?
You’re impossible! I’m getting out of here.
Run again! Go ahead! Leave!
I going out and won’t be back for supper.
You can cook your own supper, if you want
one.
This dance of wounds that couples do, these circular loops of hurt and anger only make
couples dizzy; it is crazy making behaviour. All these scripts are really varying formats of a tragic

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play that gets lived out all too often in couple relationships. The couple has fallen into a dance, a
state of automatic emotional interactions with rigidly organized responses. The dance of wounds
becomes so familiar that partners know only too darn well where it is going to lead and the
automatic fight that will ensue. Once an accustomed communication becomes a regular part of the
couple interaction, there is often the assumption that, despite further bold attempts to change it, all
will continue to be lost. There is a sense that all this is getting nowhere, and any attempt will only,
again, lead to disaster. The couple has fallen into their deep hole in the sidewalk, and neither party
can see the way out. Attempts to try harder are only repetitions of the same old pattern. Repeated
attempts to change the other, overcome the distance or pretend the damage isn’t there, are futile.
The hurt of this repetitive dance soon turns to anger, and the blame is usually at the other person,
fingers pointing and shouts of “it’s your fault!”. Most people react to the threatened loss of love in
some form of a childish temper tantrum, perhaps cognizant of their childhood days when mom
and dad were likewise seemingly mean and withholding of love.
This breech of a love relationship is an unconscious reminder of deficits in a person’s
experience of parental love, just as the original attachment couples have is often a recreation of
the attachment patterns with parents. This is one of the main crisis points in couple relationships
for unless a couple can see their way beyond this repetitive and defensive wall, the partner’s hurt
too often turns to anger and can add up to couple disaster and separation. It appears to both
partners that the basic problem lies with the other’s seeming change of personality, in
his/her denial or withholding of love, or worse, their deliberate and unforgiving meanness.

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Why have you changed? Where is that old you that I use to love so much? Come out, come out,
wherever you are!!
What is going on here is, in fact, the dance of wounds, probably unconscious at this early
stage. Family of origin pre-existent wounds are playing in the relationships and, as a result, needs
and expectations are left unfulfilled, love feels deprived and the closeness that used to be that
“falling in love” has gone out the window. Usually at this stage, neither partner is mindful enough
to stop the dance and take a time out to see what is going on between them, let alone to become
aware of their own contribution to the problem or to know their own steps in the dance of wounds.
Same Old Darn Thing
In many ways the dance of wounds is doing the same old darn thing now with your partner
that you use to do with your parents before. The dance of wounds is a recurring and predictable
pattern of interactions and conflicts. Attachment theory is intergenerational especially in regard to
assessing and predicting adult attachment patterns based on what people experienced as children.
Children tend unconsciously to identify with parents and adopt the same patterns of behavior that
they themselves have experienced during their childhood. Thus these patterns of interaction are
transmitted more or less faithfully from one generation to the next. These are the sins of the
forefathers and foremothers that are passed on to the next generation unless the dance of wounds
is re-created into a dance of love.
Past parental attachment behaviors can be transferred to present partner relationships.
Turned around, present relationship patterns can be better understood by uncovering experiences
or “working models” of childhood and characteristics of past attachment figures, especially

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parents. This is done by observing, researching, and realizing the “unfinished business” of
childhood which still organize present interactional and communication patterns. Clients’ current
and past family of origin climate can be quite predictive of present couple attachment styles.
Family systems theory predicts that interactional patterns are reproduced from generation
to generation because it is within the family context that most of us learn how to love,
communicate, and parent. Levels of individuation and intimacy within the family of origin are
reproduced in our current relationship with spouse and significant others. Such interactions and
communication ways are what each of us brings to the development of couple relationships, be
that for better or for worse. These old family rules of communication, these old ways of doing
things, seem normal enough to us because we have been using them since birth. They can usher us
into trouble, however, when we meet and interact with other people, especially an intimate
partner, who just happens to have grown up with quite different family rules. It is at these times
that the waters of relationship get muddied and tested. Indeed, some people keep repeating the
pattern from partner to partner. I have heard it said often enough in therapy how a daughter hated
her father so much, she went out and married someone just like him. Similarly, a man, quiet and
withdrawn, marries a woman who is talkative and extroverted, later to feel the pain of her endless
chatter. He leaves her, only to find and marry another woman of similar character.
It would seem to be commonsensical to observe that if our attempts to change this dance
and improve it have not worked in these past years, it would be well to stop doing what we have
been doing and to switch to new behaviours and try other approaches to couple interaction that

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might work better. To achieve maturity, both partners need to balance individuation and intimacy
in the couple relationships.
Pushing your Buttons
“Watch it! You’re pushing my buttons!” is often one of the opening lines in the ongoing
battle of the dance of wounds. In fact, wounds are really emotional buttons, much the same as
found in elevators, and when they are pushed, we react with emotional reactivity that can range
from accelerating up to the top floor of anger, or down to the basement of depression. Therefore,
it can be said that we each have a few emotional buttons, born in our family of origin and
operative in my present relationship with my partner. Buttons, like wounds, can be words, tones,
facial looks, or bodily gestures that elicit an automatic emotional response which can range from
frustration and anger to withdrawal and depression. Buttons are almost automatic, instinctual and
expeditious reactions to old learned family of origin interactions. When it comes to buttons, we
can respond with a synchronicity of defensive reactions that come out of some unconscious
childhood place.
Example:
One client spoke of one of his buttons when his wife would wag her index finger at him in the
gesture (and often words) to the effect that he was “a bad boy”, a button that instantaneous
reminded him of the multitudinous (so it felt) times that his mother would use the same finger to
lecture him about something he was doing. That “finger button” raises in him sadness, hurt,
frustration, guilt and often times anger. Another client spoke of a certain tone her husband often
used in a confrontation that reminded her of her father’s condescending voice when she was

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young, and reminded her of all that she could not do right. For one female client, the button was
her husband’s reaching for and having but one beer, for it brought her back to the days of her
father’s drinking and accompanying anger. For one male client, his button was about needing to
almost purposely fail or mess up when confronted by his wife’s perfectionism, for it reminded
him of his father’s constant words to him about how he would “never be any good at anything”.
Buttons are those emotional places in the recesses of our primarily unconscious emotional
gut where old family of origin wounds reside, and these wounds await the call by seemingly
loving partners to come forward and express themselves in ways that are repetitive and equivalent
to our reactions during childhood. To know my buttons, and develop new ways of reacting to
them and working with them is the beginning of the end of the dance of wounds.
Hurt and Anger
In a real sense, hurt and anger is one and the same button. If you hurt me, I will get angry;
if you distance yourself from me, I will be indignant; if you make too many demands of me and
my time, and it feels like I am smothering, I will become incensed. Anger is but a natural response
to hurt and both are but two sides of the same coin. On the other hand, if I am feeling angry, or
see anger in my partner, I now also know there must be hurt present. My partner’s anger is a sign
or symptom of some hurt present in our relationship. As partners who dance the dance of wounds,
we now have two choices: we can chase down the anger and respond with more anger or we can
ask about the hurt and be curious about what may be hurtful for my partner. Talking about and
pursuing the hurts rather than fighting with our anger is an entirely different conversation and a
conscious moving away from the dance of wounds.

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Example:
Compare the following partner’s angry outburst:
Partner 1: “You make me so angry!!! You just don’t care about me at all! You never show me any
affection!”
Partner 2 ( pursuing the anger): “You are the one who always gets mad! Just listen to yourself for
a minute!”
Partner 2 (pursuing the hurt): “I hear that you are really hurting. I wonder if we can talk about
what happened that might have contributed to this hurt.”
The Dance of Wounds is Also a Call for Growth
Now that the “cat is out of the bag” and the couple see their relationship shattered into a
thousand pieces on the floor, it is decision time: do we work to save the relationship or do we cash
in their chips and separate. There is a famous book which suggests that we feel the fear and do it
anyway. Perhaps it will be a friend who becomes a facilitator to suggest we look at what is
happening to us as couple. It may be an article in the newspaper, or the work of a therapist, or
words that tells us to “think about what we are doing” . However the “coming to their senses”
happens, there can also be a strong call here to turn this crisis into opportunity. This might really
be a necessary and fortunate conflict that is calling the couple to a deeper sense of intimacy. How
can a couple move from this dance of wounds that inadvertently or unconsciously hold them in a
negative interaction cycle, to a dance of re-creation that enables them to create new perceptions
and responses for each other in the direction of a positive spiral.

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Intimate relationships, we have suggested, are repetitions of the attachment patterns we
have or had with our parents, for better and for worse. As such, it brings out both the healthy and
unhealthy ways of relating and loving learned in childhood. As the honeymoon comes to an end
and the veil of illusion falls away, the dance of wounds moves into high gear. This can open a
wonderful opportunity for partners to examine and work on unfinished business and unresolved
family of origin issues. The very things that attracted a couple to each other in the first place are
of the same nature that now brings about this breach of relationship. Turning the dance of wounds
into a call for growth and change would help both partners address and heal old family of origin
and unfinished attachment wounds.
Any call for growth and change needs to be, first and foremost, a call to look at and
change oneself. When I make myself a better person, and I can secure a better self understanding,
I also become a better mate and lover for my partner. In fact, it is often one partner who initially
begin the journey towards healing the relationship, and often I see just one partner in therapy. The
journey to re-creating the relationship can begin when one partner starts to model and work on
her/himself, and hopes and waits for the other to catch on. This will be the topic of the next
chapter. There is hope for wounded relationships, and love can be re-found and increased to
deeper and fresh dimensions.

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Exercise: The Dance of Wounds
This exercise is designed to help couple notice and trace the steps each of them does in
the in dance of wounds. Sketching the steps on paper allows the couple to be come more
observant about their dance.
Things you say and do (words, tone, facial expressions or body language) that make me
feel safe and loved are....
1)
2)
3)
Things you say and do (words, tone, facial expressions or body language) that really kick
in my wounds and push my buttons are....
1)
2)
3)
If I were to track our dance of wounds, it might look something like this:
He said She said

The Dance of Wounds: Understanding Reciprocal Patterns of Hurt in Relationships

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